Arizona Storytellers: Innovation pays off for longtime cotton farmer

by John Faherty - Feb. 22, 2011 12:00 AMThe Arizona Republic

Howard Wuertz has been watching the cotton grow on his family farm for nearly his entire life.

His parents planted their first crop in Arizona more than 80 years ago, and Wuertz can mark the passage of time through the growing seasons. Plant the seeds in March, last water in September, harvest in October or November, depending on the weather.

But Wuertz's life, although bucolic, has been busy, and the change has been nearly constant.

He has played a role in changes to the Arizona landscape.

He helped craft water-usage reform. The real-estate frenzy came right to his front door.

And although he used to hitch horses to drag the equipment that helped his parents work their land, his cotton fields in Coolidge now are plowed by satellite-guided tractors. He holds five patents in new farming technology.

Still, one simple aspect remains the best: the beauty of watching things grow.

"When a field is ready to harvest, a cotton field," he said, "it's just absolutely gorgeous."

Embracing change

The Wuertz family moved to Arizona from South Dakota in October of 1929. They planted cotton seeds the following spring.

Howard fought in World War II and then went to the University of Arizona to study agricultural engineering before settling on the farm.

He learned over the years how thirsty a cotton field can be. Each crop required copious amounts of water, mostly through flood irrigation.

In the 1970s, water conservationists began to make noise about how much water cotton farmers used. "They hammered us," Wuertz said. "It was pretty much non-stop."

But rather than dig in and resist change, Wuertz did something that surprised some people in the cotton community. He agreed with the conservationists. He knew that water was being wasted.

Then, the federal government got involved.

In 1977, Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus warned Arizona that federal funding for the Central Arizona Project could be in jeopardy without reforms to the way the state pumped groundwater.

Then-Gov. Bruce Babbitt formed a group to figure out ways to use less water.

Wuertz was asked to join the committee that eventually came up with a plan that would become the Groundwater Management Act. It was signed into law in 1980.

Back on the farm, Wuertz knew he had to do more than just talk about conserving water.

At the time, he was bringing his water up from deep wells and spreading it around his crops through canals. It was the same way that generations of Arizona farmers had watered their fields.

Wuertz looked for greater efficiencies in the delivery system. He leveled his fields so water wouldn't be wasted in the low spots. He lined his ditches with concrete so water wouldn't seep into the ground. He shortened the distance the ditches ran from the wells.

"But I was still using about twice as much water as you needed to," he said.

So, in 1980, he decided to make a leap of faith and installed a drip-irrigation system.

The tubing would be buried underground, sending water straight to the plants' roots.

Some growers thought he had lost his marbles. The cost was too high, they said. It wouldn't work for cotton. The repairs would make you crazy.

The initial cost was high. He spent millions - $1,200 an acre for his 3,200-acre farm - but he was sure it would work. And it did.

Almost immediately, he cut his water usage in half. His water bill dropped by $200,000 a year. He developed a maintenance plan that has the original tubing still in the ground today.

And, most importantly, the cotton grew better than ever before. His yield increased by 33 percent.

"It doesn't make the crops unhappy at all," he said.

Equipment innovation

Traditionally, the biggest drawback of in-ground irrigation systems is the farming equipment. Plows and tractors would rip right through the tubing.

Wuertz, who calls himself a "nuts and bolts" man, got to working on a way to solve the problem.

He planted his rows 40 inches apart so equipment could work between the plants. He then developed hardware that would work at less than 8-inches deep, keeping the tubing safe.

He now owns five patents on equipment that allows for farming on land with subsurface irrigation.

He gets some royalties, he said, but his primary income remains in cotton and other crops. One of his sons and one of his daughters are working and managing the farm now.

In 2005, Wuertz thought he was getting out of the farming business. He sold Sundance Farms to a real-estate developer. The purchase was part of the real-estate frenzy, and Wuertz thought he needed a change. So did his community.

"It will change the way of life in Coolidge," Wuertz said at the time. "But it's due for a change."

Eventually, though, the deal didn't happen and the homes weren't built. "It just fell out of bed," Wuertz said.

Most all of his land came back to him. The 700 acres that did not, he now leases back, which means he is still a farmer.

"One of the things it takes to be a farmer is to have an innate desire to watch things grow," Wuertz said. "I'm a cotton farmer front to back."